Wario's comeback
by mrwhatzitooya1
Summary: Join Wario as he pursues his goal of one day leading his team to victory and claiming the Striker Cup! This is a "Mario Strikers Charged Football" story, starring Wario.
1. Wario's Reflection

As Wario began reading the week's edition of _Striker Times_, his brow furrowed and he growled angrily. Things had never turned out right for him in the cups. He had picked a team of who he believed to be the most skilled three teammates in the Mushroom Kingdom, never doubting that they would become the best team in the cup, with himself as their leader, of course.

"GRAAAH! This is useless!" he cried, flinging the newspaper across the room. Reading about the achievements of others only made him feel worse about his failures. While he had given up his team, sold their stadium and left the leagues altogether several years ago, he still couldn't get away from one thought: "_What if?"_ It plagued him daily. _"What if?"_ It made him wonder, just _what if_ he could have succeeded, claiming the much desired Striker Cup for his own.

Wario got up slowly from his chair, before trudging wearily over to the door to his storage room. Once it had been clean, when Wario intended to use it as his trophy room. The podiums that he expected to fill with trophies were now hidden beneath mounds of boxes of "junk", so much so that they were all but lost in a sea of knick-knacks. Muttering to himself, he began searching through his belongings for the stands he had forgotten long ago. After several minutes of searching, he found the largest, upon which he had expected to place a certain cup. Looking at it, Wario imagined the winged golden cup, the coveted Striker Cup, standing proudly in the centre of the room.

Snapping out of his daydream, Wario's eyes lit up and a grin began to show on his face. "I CAN win it!" he said. "I WILL!" As he dashed out of the room, he turned back to look at the place where the cup would one day sit. _"Just you wait and see…"_ he thought, before slamming the door, enveloping the room in darkness.


	2. The Tryouts

A few days later, Wario was sitting on his front lawn, with a large banner reading "_Team Wario Tryouts"_ placed in front of his house. Wario was sitting in his most comfortable deck chair, a clip board in his lap, waiting for the first of his possible teammates to arrive. Getting a Kritter for goalie wasn't difficult, but finding other GOOD teammates might prove a little more tricky.

First to step up was a small, nervous Toad with blue polka dots in his hat. "Right, get on with it!" Wario growled. He nodded towards a rusty metal football he'd kept from one of his first (and only) wins. Approaching the ball, the Toad quickly flicked it onto his head, before bouncing it off the ground and kicking it at Wario's makeshift net. Missing completely, the ball soared into the air, narrowly avoiding Wario's face, before hurting into one of the windows on Wario's house. "Umm… how'd I do?" the Toad asked timidly. Seeing the less than amused expression on Wario's face, he quickly fled.

As soon as Wario retrieved the ball, he nodded absent-mindedly, indicating for the next hopeful to step up. A Boo appeared out of thin air, a mischievious smile on his face, before doing a somersault. When he stepped up to the ball however, the ghost was stopped by a gruff, "NEXT!" from Wario.

"But, I didn't even get to…" the Boo began.

"I don't care, I've seen enough!" Wario replied. "Now get outta here!"

The day continued much in this fashion, with most of the hopefuls being turned away for their lack of talent, or simply because Wario didn't like them. The only two that caught his interest were a fast-sprinting Dry Bones named Dusty and a hard hitting Hammer Bro called Garry. As the last of Wario's "victims" stepped up, Wario had all but given up hope of finding a third teammate, and was sitting back in his chair picking his nose.

The last was a stout looking Monty Mole. Burrowing underground, he sped towards the ball, but as he came up, misjudged the distance, causing the ball to shoot into the air. As Wario watched, clearly unimpressed, he heard a cry of "MAIL, MR WARIO!" It was the local mailkoopa, Lenny, that stopped by at around the same time every day on his mailrun. Still watching the ball, Wario grinned as it hurtled towards the koopa. _"This should be funny…"_ he thought to himself. Just as it was about to hit Lenny, however, the koopa noticed the small projectile. He threw down his mailbag, and went inside his shell. As the ball hit his shell, he flipped himself over and burst out again, kicking the ball straight into the back of the net.

Picking up his mailbags, Lenny walked over to Wario. Holding out a bundle of mail, he smiled apologetically. "Sorry!" he said. "I got a bit carried away there! The mailrun gets a little boring sometimes."

Wario just sat there, eyes wide and mouth gaping. After a moment, he recovered and looked up at Lenny. "How… how'd you learn to do that?" he asked.

Lenny shrugged. "That? Well, I play a bit of football now and again. I'm a bit of a fan, but I'm not really that good myself."

Hearing that Lenny liked football, a smile spread across Wario's face. "Really? Well, if you like football, how'd you like to help me out? I've almost got a team together, but I'm missing my last member. You wanna join?"

Lenny's face lit up. "Gee, I'd love to!" Sitting back in his chair, Wario smiled to himself. _"This isn't gonna be a problem at all!"_


End file.
